We Need the Wobblies Now More Than Ever!

Preamble to the IWW Constitution

"The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth..." Preamble to the IWW Constitution

The Union Makes Us Strong!

The Rise of the Industrial Workers of the World: The Working Class Fights Back!

With the economy in shambles and labor being asked to sacrifice to pay for the cost of management's failures, it's time for a return to fighting unions run by rank and file membership. Instead of the current unions, that entertain ideas of betraying the retirees that came before them and selling out their new members and their own future in the process. Urging members to give back wages and benefits that workers literally fought and bled for decades to achieve; even as the corporate executives, who drove the industry into ruin, continue collecting multi-million dollar salaries without any repercussions. What we need is a return to the type of union epitomized by the Wobblies; a radical, aggressive union that isn't afraid to fight for its member's interests.

The Industrial Workers of the World were founded in 1905 amidst the excesses and abuses brought about by the Industrial Revolution. From the outset, they were radical, extremist, and unyielding in their determination to take that which they felt rightly belonged to the working class, refusing to just accept whatever scraps the bosses decided to leave them. Steadfast in their belief that all workers deserved to enjoy the fruits of their own labors, they demanded rather than negotiated better working conditions and pay.

The Wobblies, as they came to be known, employed direct action within the the workplace, such as slowdowns, general strikes, workplace occupations, sit-ins, and sabotage in their struggles against the bosses. Such tactics proved to be very effective and the IWW became one of the most powerful and influential labor unions numbering over 100,000 members at it's height. Most of the union's members were migrant workers riding from town to town by rail; seeking seasonal work; and keeping the bosses honest.

In order to maximize worker strength, they emphasized industrial unionism over craft unionism. This meant that all workers were organized as a singular unit, rather than segregated by individual trades. Industrial unionism afforded workers more influence and encouraged greater solidarity across trades, thereby preventing companies from pitting union members against each other in an effort to break strikes. Another major difference was that workers of all types and skill levels were encouraged to join the "One Big Union," regardless of occupation, race, creed, or sex; something that was unheard of among American unions at the time. However, this vital strength would soon leave them vulnerable to their enemies' attacks.

Anti-Wobbly Propoganda

Anti-IWW Cartoon

The Kaiser Wobbly

The Decline of the IWW

Why the IWW is not Patriotic

"You ask me why the I.W.W. is not patriotic to the United States. If you were a bum without a blanket; if you had left your wife and kids when you went west for a job, and had never located them since; if your job had never kept you long enough in a place to qualify you to vote; if you slept in a lousy, sour bunkhouse, and ate food just as rotten as they could give you and get by with it; if deputy sheriffs shot your cooking cans full of holes and spilled your grub on the ground; if your wages were lowered on you when the bosses thought they had you down; if there was one law for Ford, Suhr, and Mooney, and another for Harry Thaw; if every person who represented law and order and the nation beat you up, railroaded you to jail, and the good Christian people cheered and told them to go to it, how in hell do you expect a man to be patriotic?

The Fall: World War I, Government Crackdowns, and Internal Rifts

Unfortunately, shortly after their rise to prominence, the government, acting on the behalf of corporate interests, began engaging in a campaign of repression and persecution of the Wobblies.

The Wobblies were fast becoming a formidable force in the labor movement and they were determined to put an end to it before it was too late. Companies often employed Pinkerton agents or hired goons along with military troops and police provided by government connections as strikebreakers to attack and intimidate striking workers.

In one of the worst of many examples of labor clashes, 250 IWW members from Seattle travelled to Everett, Washington to protest restrictions on free speech and violent attacks on Wobblies by local police during a 1916 strike. Their ferry was met at the dock by the local sheriff and about three hundred deputized strikebreakers. When the Wobblies refused the sheriff's orders to turn back, him and his "deputies" opened fire on the boat. The union members returned fire and the ensuing melee resulted in eleven dead and twenty-seven wounded passengers; plus two dead and twenty-four wounded on shore.

Things got even worse with the onset of the First World War. Opponents took advantage of the IWW's anarchist, socialist, and anti-war beliefs; as well as their close affiliation with immigrants to strike at its membership. Beginning in 1917, IWW union halls throughout the country were raided by Justice Department agents and hundreds of Wobblies were arrested. They were charged with acts in violation of the newly passed Espionage Act including conspiring to hinder the draft, encourage desertion, incite revolution, and intimidate others in connection with labor disputes. The government used wartime hysteria to justify the imprisonment or deportation of thousands of IWW members.

In addition, portrayals of the Wobblies in government and corporate propaganda as "enemy aliens" and traitors for their opposition to American involvement in WWI led to many Wobblies being attacked by vigilante mobs. In Butte, Montana; Frank Little, a member of the IWW General Executive Board, was kidnapped by six masked men and lynched for criticizing the war. Wesley Everest was beaten, castrated, lynched, and shot (the most complicated suicide ever!) in Centralia, Washington by a mob after being arrested following a gunbattle between Wobblies and a group of war veterans, who had attacked the local IWW union hall during an Armistice Day Parade. Many other Wobblies throughout the country were beaten, maimed, or killed by police officials and/or vigilante mobs (often composed of thugs hired by business owners).

However, not all the Wobblies' problems were external. Even as the government was using the public's fear of communism to validate their oppressive actions; the IWW was experiencing its own internal struggle over communism. Historically, divisions had always existed between Communists and Anarchists, the two main groups comprising the IWW, involving statism. While the two groups had, for the most part, been able to coexist prior to WWI, the combination of a lack of leadership, brought about by the government repression. and the success of the Russian Revolution brought those divisions to the forefront.

In 1920, the IWW suspended the Philadelphia Longshoreman's Local no. 8, one of it's largest and most celebrated branches, over false allegations by a communist rival that they had supplied weapons to anti-Bolshevik forces in Europe. Erosion of membership continued in the early 20's as some members began to leave to join communist organizations. Soon, the remaining communist members began pushing for the IWW to align itself with the Red International of Trade Unions (also called the Profintern), a Soviet created organization of worldwide communist labor unions. Anarchist members, who disagreed with communism's statist approach and the abuses under communist rule in Russia, resisted these efforts. Further defections were caused by increases in criticisms of Soviet leaders and policies being printed in the Industrial Worker and other Wobbly publications.

Finally in 1924, there was a rift between Wobblies in the eastern states, who favored centralized control of the union and political involvement, and those in the west, who favored more localized control and organizing on the job. This led to a second union headquarters being set up in Utah and claims from both them and the original in Chicago as the "real-IWW," including two separate IWW union halls in many towns. While the western branch of the IWW had folded by 1930, this split, along with the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which severely restricted the tactics the Wobblies traditionally employed in disputes, contributed to the IWW quickly declining in membership during the next decades. Though they never actually broke up the Wobblies numbers and influence steadily decreased until they became a largely forgotten footnote in labor history. That is until recently, when they have begun to gain ground amongst young politically active workers.

"The Wobblies" - Historical Documentary of the IWW

Recently Organized Unions

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Togethor We Win: The Fight To Organize Starbucks

Workers Unite!

The Hand That Will Rule the World - One Big Union

Wobbly Terminology

The IWW has a lot of colorful and unique slang. This is a sample of some of the more common terms from the official IWW website:

Bindle Stiff- An itinerant worker, (the term "bindle" refers to blankets carried by the worker).

Boomer - A temporary worker, a wanderer, one who follows "booms" (good times).

Class War Prisoner - Anyone jailed for their class conscious views or acts.

Fink- A strike breaker; an informer; possibly derived from "Pinkertons", a private detective agency frequently used by employers to break strikes.

Hobo - A term of unknown origin that refers to an itinerant worker who "rides the rails" (stowing away on freight trains unknown to the railroads) in search of work.

Jerusalem Slim - Jesus. The name was adopted by Wobblies who believed that Jesus would have been an IWW member had he lived in their time.

Sab Cat- A symbol for "sabotage" (i.e. inefficiency at the point of production by disgruntled workers), usually represented by a black cat with bared teeth. Also called "sab kitty", "sabo-tabby", or "the cat".

Shark - An employment agent who "sells" jobs for a fee.

Stake - A sum of money intended to last until the next job.

Timber Beast - Lumberjack. Sometimes also called a Timber Wolf.

The Wobblies are Coming (Back): A Resurgence

Although membership levels have never come anywhere close to reaching the heyday of the IWW, they have never stopped fighting for workers rights throughout the world. In addition to America, there are sizable active branches in Canada, Australia, Scotland, Germany and Britain; as well as smaller branches and individual members across the globe.

Just like the original Wobblies, today's members often seek out workers that the more established unions can't or won't organize. One method they have used to overcome difficulties in organizing has been to organize the workers directly to act against wrongful labor practices without seeking formal company acceptance for the union.

One such group has always been Starbucks workers because of the aggressive anti-union tactics of management. Wobblies in New York, Minneapolis, Grand Rapids, and other cities throughout the country began organizing in 2003. Numerous union members at several locations were fired during the fight, but the union eventually won the right to unionize and fellow workers were reinstated during several court battles; and they continue to protest Starbucks' unfair labor practices.

Another industry that typically has been difficult to unionize is over-the-road (OTR) trucking. OTR truckers generally don't get paid hourly and only get paid based on how many miles they drive. Often they have to wait long hours at loading docks waiting for cargo to be loaded or unloaded. Since the government imposes limits on how many hours they can drive per day, these delays have a considerably impact drivers' ability to earn a living. Another issue for OTR drivers recently has been fuel prices. When prices are high, shippers are charged fees known as surcharges to offset the additional cost of transporting goods, but companies often resist paying or try to pay lower than the actual amount, which means the drivers end up paying the difference in shipping costs and therefore earning significantly less. At the same time, these companies often raise prices on products citing increased shipping costs even though they aren't in fact paying the proper fuel surcharges.

Over-the-road trucking companies have managed to keep other unions traditionally involved in trucking, such as the Teamsters, from organizing their drivers by classifying them as independent contractors, who are prohibited by labor law from forming or joining unions. The IWW, however, has fought for the rights of truckers anyway. They are currently involved in labor actions in support of drivers in North Carolina, Virginia, Stockton, CA., Oakland, CA., Long Beach, CA., and New Jersey, among other areas. In addition they recently cosponsored the José Gilberto Soto Trucker Education and Organizing Center. Just like in the past, the IWW has often fought in solidarity with all workers, union and non-union alike, and even those who belong to other unions.

In addition, the IWW has continued to help organize unions for workers that are commonly overlooked as they first did for seasonal and migrant workers as well as women and minorities. The IWW has provided a union for sex trade workers seeking to decriminalize prostitution and provide safeguards against exploitation and abuse for workers in the sex industry. In Ottawa, Canada the IWW established a panhandlers union to protect the local homeless population from harassment by police, business, and government officials; as well as to help empower them to better their situation.

The Pyramid of the Capitalist System

Then

Now

Click thumbnail to view full-size

All Workers Should Stand Together in Solidarity

What Will It Be?

Worker's Salaries are the Problem?

At Least There is an Upside

What Time Is It?

One Big Union

The UAW Could Learn a Thing or Two From the Wobblies

There are plenty of parallels to the days when the Wobblies first burst upon the scene. The economy is as imbalanced as it ever was, with close to eighty five percent of the nation's assets in the hands of only ten percent of the population. What's more labor is under attack from corporations trying to maximize profits at the expense of the workers.

By moving jobs to other countries, where they can take advantage of sweatshop style labor the Bosses hope to create leverage against workers to take away what pay and benefits they've acquired in the past century. Meanwhile, in spite of the headlines screaming about the downfall of the economy, the CEO's collect handsome paychecks for driving it into the ground, while the workers in those same companies are living in fear of losing their jobs, if they haven't already.

So why is it that union membership has steadily declined, even as their services are so desperately needed? Of course, the answer is that the unions no longer function as a representative of the union members. More often than not, the union leaders seek a cozy relationship with management that benefits themselves and the union's own management at the expense of workers. Instead of fighting to make companies hold Bosses responsible for their own mismanagement, which actually caused the "crisis," they allow companies to undercut the workers and their families; unfairly painting laborers as the bad guy (the $70/hr. lie) and workers' pay as the problem, even though it only represents ten percent of the actual cost of auto production.

The desire to avoid this sort of collusion and self service among union leaders and bosses is the reason that the IWW structured itself as a rank and file based organization with class warfare and worker solidarity as its principle function. The famous Wobbly slogan whenever asked who their leader was: "We Are All Leaders!" They pulled no punches with their bold assessment of the relationship between labor and management in the preamble to the IWW Constitution (quoted above) and they lived up to it in spades.

Make no mistake about it, once the Bosses break the unions in Detroit, they won't hesitate to come for the rest of us. The UAW, the Teamsters and the rest of the major labor unions would do their members a huge service by following the example of the Wobblies and viewing industrial negotiations as a war between the exploiters and the exploited until that situation ceases to be the case. However, being that those unions have already gone too far down the wrong road to do that, workers should take it upon themselves to choose another, even better option. Join the Wobblies!

What is Responsible for the Failure of the "Big Three"

Bailout?

Should We Bailout the "Big Three" automakers?

The IWW SabCat

The IWW's Alternative Organizing Methods

One of the biggest keys to the Industrial Workers of the World's success as a union was their uncommon diversity and commitment to the welfare of any worker, regardless of race, sex, or skill level. At a time when other trade unions refused to accept immigrants, minorities, women, and unskilled workers;the IWW's only restriction was that you had to be a member of the working class.

While this inclusiveness engendered great loyalty among these workers, who were constant targets of exploitation, it also created some unique obstacles. Many workers' understanding of English was limited and almost all were poorly educated. Also, the nature of the work didn't afford a lot of time for reading about the benefits of membership. They solved this problem by making their recruiting entertaining, interactive, and easily understood.

Along with the traditional pamphlets and handbills, the Wobblies distributed imagery such as graphic posters and cartoons that could be easily understood by workers with limited reading skills. One of the most effective tools employed by the IWW was the "Little Red Songbook." In fact, to this day one of the most enduring legacies of the Wobblies is the imagery and songs that they created. Solidarity Forever, which was originally published in the Little Red Songbook, has since become the official theme song of the labor movement.

Joe Hill, who wrote may of the songs in the Little Red Songbook, was a firm believer in the power of music to motivate men. “The power of song will exalt the spirit of rebellion,” Hill claimed, "A pamphlet, no matter how good, is never read but once, but a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over."

Utah Phillips Discusses Direct Action

Some Prominent Wobblies

"Big" Bill Haywood - prominent union activist in the 19th and early 20th century; founding member of the IWW; served as general-secretary treasurer from 1915-1918

Joe Hill - early IWW organizer and prominent songwriter for the "Little Red Songbook"; executed in 1915 after being falsely convicted of murder; considered folk hero and martyr, many of his songs are still used by labor groups today

Eugene V. Debs- former politician; early leader of the locomotive firemen and railway unions; founding member of the IWW; ran for president in five times including in 1920, while in prison during the government crackdown on the Wobblies (received over 900 thousand votes)

Ben Fletcher - early IWW organizer for East Coast longshoremen; one of the first African Americans to ever serve a leadership role in a labor group; served time in Leavenworth after being convicted of "conspiring to strike"

Lucy Parsons - prominent speaker and writer; anarchist, feminist, and civil rights activist; mixed-race daughter of slaves; widow of Albert Parsons one of the Haymarket Square Martyrs; after her death in an accidental fire, the FBI confiscated her personal writings and library of radical books

James Connolly- well respected writer, editor, and publisher; Wobbly organizer in New York, New Jersey, and later Ireland; was arrested and later executed by the British military for taking part in the 1916 Easter Rebellion in Ireland

Mary "Mother" Jones - labor organizer; founding member of the IWW; public speaker; prominent feminist and activist against child labor; praised as "miner's angel" by workers; denounced as "most dangerous woman in America" by management

Noam Chomsky - prominent linguist, political activist, writer, philosopher, tax resister, anti-war protester; published Syntactic Structures a theory of “generative grammar” that transformed linguistics from an obscure discipline into a major social science

Comments

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AUTHOR

Kelly W. Patterson

8 years agofrom Las Vegas, NV.

Absolutely Josh, every worker owes it to themselves.

Josh

8 years ago

I joined the IWW a few months ago, and so should everybody else!

AUTHOR

Kelly W. Patterson

9 years agofrom Las Vegas, NV.

Much thanks iskra.

There are still a few of us hanging around plotting to make a comeback.

iskra1916

9 years agofrom Belfast, Ireland.

Brilliant hub comrade !

I am an ex-wobbly myself !

Tiocfaidh ar la !

AUTHOR

Kelly W. Patterson

9 years agofrom Las Vegas, NV.

Yeah, Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution that spawned it brought a lot of things such as Social Darwinism that allowed factory owners to justify treating workers as just another interchangeable commodity rather than people. Something to be used up and replaced once they were no longer profitable.

I think most people have no idea just how bad things were a relatively short time ago and how much progress was made just by banding together and looking out for one another. Otherwise, it wouldn't be so easy to paint unions as the bad guy for demanding decent working conditions and wages, while accepting the executives skimming an inordinate amount of the companies' profits off the top.

Ivan the Terrible

9 years agofrom Madrid

One of my long-ago relatives was a boy of fourteen when he died in St. Louis. He worked the coal elevator at a foundry and was caught in the coal lifter, which took him straight up the chute and dumped him alive into the blast furnace. There was no "stop" control on the chute because the furnace ran 24 hours a day, seven days week. His father and others watched in horrified inability to help as he screamed in the ten seconds or so it took for the device to drag him up and over the edge. This was about 1890, and no one ever appologised to his family for his death. Instead, they blamed it on his carelessness. That's Corporate Concern for you.

Of course, he had been working one of those long shifts so common back then, where he probably got 50 cents an hour because of his age, even though he was expected to do the same work as a grown man. Even if he had not been killed so gruesomely, he would have died young due to coal dust. Many youths did.

And when I hear people damning the Unions, what do I say? If you enjoy overtime, a 40 hour work week, benefits and many other things like that, thank a Union.

AUTHOR

Kelly W. Patterson

9 years agofrom Las Vegas, NV.

Murrow never actually confirmed he was a member, so it's unclear whether he was or not. But one of the straws that McCarthy grabbed for when making his famous ill-fated response to Murrow's criticisms of him was to try and discredit him by "exposing" him as a member of the IWW.

I couldn't agree with you more on the second point, except you're actually being generous toward the bosses. At the time when the Wobblies formed the average working day consisted of 12 hours and the vast majority of workers worked 6 days a week. And that was just the average. It was not at all uncommon for factory workers to work as many as 16 hours a day; 6 days a week. In fact in the mid-1800s, when labor first began to organize, one of the most common demands was a 60 hour work week. Even during the famous Lawrence Textile Strike in 1912, they were hoping for a 54 hour work week.

Beyond that, the conditions were down right horrible. Between disease and workplace accidents the life expectancy was very low for factory workers. Most workers went to work in as young children ("Big" Bill Heywood was working in the mines at the age of 8) and over a third of workers died by the time they were 25.

All that so they could make almost enough money to feed themselves.

Ivan the Terrible

9 years agofrom Madrid

If I'm not mistaken Edward R. Murrow was a Wobbly in his younger days. Funny how the Red Scare was preceded by the Brown Scare, that is, the Fascists Brownshirts.

When workers no longer need a Union to get fair treatment, it'll be a great day. But until then, all of you who work 40 hour weeks, remember that before the Unions you would have worked a 60 hour week at slave wages. And you would not have health benefits or any other benefits, and if injured on the job, you were just thrown out into the street and another poor sap took your place.

Long live the Unions!

AUTHOR

Kelly W. Patterson

9 years agofrom Las Vegas, NV.

Thanks,

The Wobs have a very long and storied history. The free speech fights throughout the Pacific Northwest, and especially in Washington, are a huge part of that history.

LibertyUnchained

9 years agofrom Earth.

Excellent Hub.

I stumbled on some of this information when I was up in everett searching through some of the older books tucked away in a back room of the library there

AUTHOR

Kelly W. Patterson

9 years agofrom Las Vegas, NV.

Thanks a lot Dolores, in the future I am going to do some other hubs about the history of labor unions and some of the more radical unions, many of which later became a part of the IWW. I also plan to do some biographical hubs of the members and more specific hubs about some of the strikes and demonstrations during the early years of the labor movement. And I plan to do plenty of stuff on economics which would involve history and the conditions during and immediately after the Industrial Revolution(s).

Also thanks for pointing the ad out, I hadn't noticed it before and it doesn't appear to be there now, but I did add the PMgroup to my ad filter, which had the same type of ad. I think they rotate the ads, so I'll look out for the other one.

Dolores Monet

9 years agofrom East Coast, United States

eye - do you realize that one of the ads Google posted up top is for Modern Industrial Services Inc. which is a service that provides scabs if a company is threatened by labor dispute....

Dolores Monet

9 years agofrom East Coast, United States

eye - this is a great and informative hub - you might even break it down and write several hubs on the same subject - very important these days when so many working people are being screwed

AUTHOR

Kelly W. Patterson

9 years agofrom Las Vegas, NV.

Like a cucumber.

Om Prakash Singh

9 years agofrom India, Calcutta

O that's good indeed EYEAM4ANARCHY, I guess its all cool then.

AUTHOR

Kelly W. Patterson

9 years agofrom Las Vegas, NV.

I appreciate the compliment packerpack.

In regards to the links; You'll notice that rule has exemptions for links that are only used for references and aren't commercial in nature. I actually wasn't sure about how that applied so I sent an email to the HubPeople and asked if it was going to be an issue to use a lot of links to the same sites. They replied that it was fine.

Om Prakash Singh

9 years agofrom India, Calcutta

This hub was a very good read EYEAM4ANARCH. It has such a big volume of information and I liked the way you have written. You have also given links to a number of useful sites. Having said that I would like to say, the way you have put links in your hub could be against the Hubpages policy. One of Hubpages policy says;

you are not allowed to use Hubs that are "overly promotional, including excessive linking to any one site or domain." I have seen that most of your links go to "iww.org" or a derivative of the same. Hence this Hub could be considered as a promotional Hub.

To overcome this I would suggest you to use link capsule to put the links on your Hubs. I am not sure about it but links in a link capsule aren't considered "Promotional". You can divide your collection of links in different link capsule and put it after text capsules that contain related contents.

I hope my suggestion will help you.

AUTHOR

Kelly W. Patterson

9 years agofrom Las Vegas, NV.

You are very much welcome. I enjoyed writing it. The IWW has a very rich, colorful history. I wish that more people were aware of them.

earnestshub

9 years agofrom Melbourne Australia

Detailed. A great informative read EYEAM4ANARCHY thanks for a great hub.

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